Stefan Didak’s Home Office Comments

Over several months many comments have been made about my home office setup. A lot of these comments reside on the various blogs and forums where people have been posting links to my home office pictures. This blog entry, now that I have a personal site to play with, is a way to allow comments to be left directly on the site itself. If your comments are really funny, silly, or outrageous I’ll consider adding them to the collected comments archive.

Michael: I don’t think I could build a setup like my office for anyone else because the requirements of different individuals, the work they do, what they are most comfortable with, etc. differs so much that extreme setups like these are usually born out of a combination that is very much an individual choice. 🙂 And I have to admit that I don’t actually build or put together most of the hardware (I leave that part up to my excellent dealer). At the most I will swap HD’s but that’s usually as close as I get to getting “into” the machines themselves.

I have a few UPS units for the most critical systems. Isis and Osiris (the internet gateways and mini servers) both have an APC Back-UPS 700VA which sustains them and the modems and routers for a few minutes. They will shut down if there is only 3 minutes left on the UPS. A bigger APC Smart-UPS 5000VA ensures power for Argon and it will start its shutdown when only 10 minutes remain (Argon needs more time to shut down because each VM needs to shut down or go into stasis).

Many years ago I had a WinNT machine that I managed an uptime of over 17 months on but on average the uptime for Isis and Orisis is about 6-7 months. Within that time I usually do something like an upgrade to something that requires a reboot. The uptime for Argon is about 2-3 months on average. Also because it frequently undergoes maintenance. The other systems do not generally need to run 24/7 so they get powered on and off as-needed.

Very, very impressive system setup, I’m working on a MMO and was considering something very similar to that, but now that I see you how much power and hardware you’ve needed I’m a little turned off. Maybe 4/5 screens lol. This must have taken a fair amount of work, can you go into how you managed to get all the systems interconnected a little more? Well good luck on all your future projects and it’d be very interesting to hear more about this “dream home”, keep posting

@Justin: I have a career? 🙂 It all started back in the early and mid 80’s while playing around with 3D computer graphics, at a time when the idea of computer generated movies was an unattainable dream. In 1989 I started my own business in production of 3D animation, video production, etc. and things sort of went from there. Because there wasn’t much, or any, software for these purposes I always found myself writing my own tools and over the years that evolved towards me focusing more on development than production.

The home office is a business expense so the money that went into its stages is something I never kept track of. Every year older workstations or servers are replaced with newer ones to the point where every 3 years almost all the hardware will have been changed or upgraded in some way. The thing I’ve learned is that hardware never gets cheaper, it stays the same. A decent workstation ran about $10-15k some 10 years ago, and it still does today. Of course the newer stuff outperforms what came before it, but the general cost seems to remain much in the same ballpark.

That is one sexy display, and I have total geek envy. I love your naming system, too. My sister tends to name things after mythological characters, and I name mine after elements or other scientific terms. My main system is Technetium, his external drive is Fluorine, and my flash drive is Indium.

This is to inform you that it has been brought to our notice that you have been guilty of consumption of more photons than has been alloted per individual, per year, in the span of a single day. In lieu of this gross over-consumption we hereby call upon you to supplant the value of these photons by submitting unto the God of light a sum of $1 per photon, failure of which would cause immediate and complete cease of supply of any electrons to your sources of power. For further information regarding the exact details of usage and payment method please revert back to the email address associated with this note.

Dear Hyperion, Thanks for the notice but you are misinformed about my consumption of photons. I have been awarded the honorary title of God of Color after doing color correction work on high definition video material and as such I have a standing agreement with The Light One. To preserve the photonic balance I have been using diet-photons for quite some time now and thereby have dramatically lowered the overall consumption, allowing me to put in more photon emitter fields (a.k.a. TFT screens) on the deesktop. My recent stay in a nuclear power plant has also granted me the capability to be a source of light. Granted, it is a greenish color, but it works. This also allows me to put some photon radiation back into circulation.

You are my hero! And not just because of your setup.
Firstly I’ve always been interested in 3D Animation, I played aroung with Maya PLE and the student edition of Softimage XSI but I unfortunatly dont seem to be creative enough to go anywhere with it (and also too poor to afford any kind of 3D animation corses).
Secondly I’ve always been interested in programming, I’m a little better with that, I’ve taught myself a little bit of .Net and am now experimenting with Java and C++.
Thirdly, screens! I love high res displays, and the more desktop space the better! But one thing that really ticks me off is the fact that the screen on your laptop has a dot pitch of about 0.20, yet professional standalone TFT’s only ever go as low as 0.25 and that you can only find in the 20″ screens. Have you noticed that? I mean how the hell does that make sense? I still have a CRT because I cant even get the 20″ screen I want where I live.
You pretty much have everything I’ve always wanted!

VERY impressive office. This is something what I can only dream about, but anyway, I`m happy that someone succeeded to make it real.
Keep up the good job, and make your office even MORE bigger 🙂
Best wishes!

Just checked it out and it looks kinda cool, but I seriously don’t understand the point? What would make you use 7 monitors? I can understand and imagine using 2-3 monitors, but 7? Is it just for personal vanity (seeing how you actually started a website to… show it off?) or do you actually have a need for all of it?

Anyway, it looks rather cool and I’m obviously envious 😉 And as long as you’re happy with it, don’t listen to my critique 😛

Impressive. What I most respect is that your hardware configuration (and purchasing decisions) are dictated by your actual technical needs, not ego. My needs are (currently) less expansive than yours, so I’m looking at putting together a triple-head setup switched for two workstations (a Windows machine and a Mac Pro, the latter primarily for Final Cut Studio) and the rest of the hardware rack-mounted servers hosting virtualized OSes. I also have a less expansive budget, so I will be building my network piecemeal 🙂

Thanks for sharing your setup in such detail. It’s given me some good ideas, and helped me identify some flags to keep in mind.

As a multimonitor junkie, I can only say “wow, that’s the way it should be”.
But some questions arise.
First, I was asking why you were using MaxVista and synergy. But, going to MaxVista site, i understand that MaxVista allows you to span windiows over multiple windows machines (which is not my case – but is definitly cool).
Second, I’ve noticed your spaghetti cables, bad boy, but my main issue is : how do you do with video cables ? They’re often too short and very hard to deal with. Have you got some black magic ? Or is the velcro power enough.
Finally, I clearly understand why 19″ racks are not a great solution. But, for dealing with heat and noise, haven’t you ever though about a separate room for you systems, connected to your desktop through cable holes ?

And, as an aside, hiow did you make the wonderful ignyter and ignytion back images ?

I second the video clip. Not for disbelief though, I think I might learn a few things about using a multi-screen setup. I know my brain would start psychologically blocking off a large portion of them after a few minutes.

Also, congratualations on actually having a use for the multi-machine multi-screen office.

@Those who want to see a video: I actually tried that with a webcam positioned at the back of me but the light sensitivity messes it up. The screens and windows wash out to white and you can’t really see much because of that.

@Nicolas: The velcro is very strong, indeed. The overlap where it sticks is about 2″ on average and it holds up bundles of wires, even monitor cables, quite well. I do usually replace monitor cables with different ones that are longer (2m and 3m). The Ignyter images are mathematical visualization of strange attactors, chaos, fractals, etc. combined with a bit of post processing. Moving stuff into a different room and using cable holes is a bit difficult (unless I start moving elsewhere). Rackmount chassis are usually even more noisy too. The cables would also have to be really long. If I move to a place that could better support it, what I would like to do is start a rack in the same room as the office but enclosed within thick glass sliding walls in a way that still allows me easy access while taking out most of the noise, and having some kind of AC system that continually cools the entire walled off enclosure.

That’s not a home office, that’s a home starship bridge. You’ve got more processing power there than the entire Starship Enterprise! Quite obviously, I’m in the wrong line of work. That is one amazing setup!

Anyways, I am high school student right now looking into going to nasa, Right now I have a set up like that but with 4 monitors and and 1 laptop and with a similar router set up, much messier cord arrangement. But, what schools would you think would be a good background like yours? I play around with 3d and Autodesk often and have been offered a internship at Hamilton sunstrand, but what would be a good college that nasa 3d engineers would like?

@Matt and MeTheGeek: I hardly ever watch a movie on these screens. Big plasma screens wouldn’t work for me anyway, not enough resolution to move things around on. I’d actually prefer 12 (2 rows, 5 columns) 17″ screens with 1600×1200 if they would make them.

@Billy: The blue backlit keyboards are from some unknown brand called QWare (at least, that’s what it says on the bottom, I picked them up in a store at one point because they were small and didn’t take up much space).

@Troy: Schools… hmm.. You’re asking the wrong person. I’ve never been much in favor of school and much more a proponent of self-study.

Nice setup, I really like it! I thought my world was perfect with just using a desktop with two laptops as supplements. The only thing that would bother me would be the noise. How typically loud is it in your office? I know you said that is louder than most could handle, but do you have anything to compare the loudness against?

Bryan, I’m not sure what to compare the noise with. If you’ve ever been in a datacenter… well, it’s *far* from that bad. Depending on the model of car I’d say, the noise throughout the office is similar to having the AC on on its lowest to second level (and I usually have headphones on when working as well so it really doesn’t bother me as much as it should) 🙂

Thanks to an observant reader I just got a few links and information that made me decide to pull the many derogatory comments made by “Xavier Lumine”, who’s real identity is Dmitriy M and certainly isn’t what he claimed to be. This guy had the odacity to troll on the blog calling me a “pathetic grunt” while in other places he attempts to impress people by writing about his claimed $45.000 wrist watch, parties on yachts in Monaco and his Cartiers. And that as a traveler “who has experienced the very utmost of luxury (places like the Mandarin Oriental, private rented castles, Costes, private villas in Florence, etc) in over 40 different countries”. And what ever happened to his illusions of club ownership which he describes elsewhere as “A business partner and I plan to open 5 clubs in Underground, starting with 2 in january 06, 2 in march and 1 in may”? Ah, yes, we know the type, don’t we.

Gosh, all that for a 20-something immature troll. Sorry, Dimitry aka Xavier. This is a place for real people, not your illusions of being a grade a blog-troll. It’s clear who’s pathetic. Keep trolling and I’ll reveal your full name and some more fun details I was sent, which probably will work wonders in search engine results. 🙂

I’m curious about what you’ve decided with Vista as well. As a gamer, Vista will be necessary for DX10. However, you lose the support of MaxiVista and other similar programs with WDDM. I assume if you develop with DirectX at all, Vista will be required – have any leads on MaxiVista-like soft that’s going to work with the latest drivers?

((Synergy does function, but spanning is so much easier to work with))

@Andrew: Since many people (who don’t know me or my work) asked that, I created a FAQ. 🙂

@Gano and Tek: I don’t have any reason to switch to Vista or deploy it at this time. Too many issues to sort out, too many things that are likely to cause problems, drivers that I hear are often still in beta. Since the office is used for serious work I can’t afford to waste a lot of time battling a new OS. I’ll most likely get a new dedicated system to run Vista when it becomes a priority to use it as a testing target. Right now it appears Visual Studio even has issues when running on Vista, so… I’m just going to sit and wait. My first reactions after playing around with the new UI were “Nice, and it shines too!” but so far that’s really what it has going for it, the new style. The DX10 stuff will become an issue and I suspect Microsoft could have just as easily done DX10 support for XP but for marketing reasons wish to push the market towards Vista and in that case it makes sense (from a corporate perspective) to only have DX10 support in Vista.

Awesome, awesome. I believe it may take quite tremendous discipline to setup and maintain such a set of gear, but I also believe it is absolutely necessary for your work and provide you with incredible amount of productivity boost. For those who are commenting things like “3 screen is absolutely enough”, I feel they are making the same mistake as saying “512KB should be enough for anyone”.

Maybe you should be able to provide a comment telling people how many screens will be “really” beyond human vision can process. My guess is the total screen surface area should reach the same size of your desk.

Dude…
Have you tried running Flight Simulator X on those screens?
Do you even game on those sweet machines?
How did you even thought of making it look that sweet?
I used to have a dual screen system, but my eyes were tired looking at both screens.
And the power consumption was poking my head.
How do cope with ALL those screens?

Hi Stefan, just like to say AWESOME 🙂 what a great setup. Your wage packet MUST be FAT 🙂 no HUGE…

Thanks for letting us see it all.

Envious? Not really – maybe in another lifetime, LOL.

Pete – uk

ps, do some of these people not read your faq? you have a need for this setup, not to brag. Some of these people need to drop their jealousy/envy. This setup is only hardware, and you have rightly pointed out that the software/data is more valuable to you.

Continued success stefan, you deserve it.

pps, will you be setting up a seperate work-station for the fiance, LOL, in pink maybe??? 🙂

@Hafizan: I hardly play games at all. The last one I played for, oh, perhaps a whole day, was several years ago; Half-Life 2. Oh, and I remember I also bought Oblivion and played that for a few hours. But for entertainment I actually rather not sit at a desk and look at screens. It’s more fun to be able to go out, take the camera with me, and shoot pictures.

@Peter: I’ve noticed most people don’t read the FAQ at all. It was only 9 to 11% of visitors that did. As a test, because marketing people say people are attracted to big buttons with big fonts saying “click here”, I added some “click here” banners to the office page and that saw an increase to 34%. Of course, that does mean that nearly 4 out of 10 visitors get overwhelmed by the visuals, shuts off their perception for a whole 4 minutes, and yields a lot of wild assumptions of what I might or might not be using it for or needing it for. It’s actually quite funny in a “researching human visual perception and behavior” way. 🙂

Pink workstations?! Eeek! I doubt that. Sallie is pretty much a laptop user only. Then again, she’s the sane one between the two of us. 🙂

Not really. Linux is not really a good idea when 95% of the stuff I develop is for Windows. But more importantly, switching screens on just a single or dual screen would not provide sufficient space (in # of pixels) to put all the windows on that I regularly deal with. The idea of not switching and just throwing some more screens at it is easier. 🙂

Wow thats an awesome set up, must be doing some serious work to need all that, let me guess many many virtual machines, only thing my little head can think of to need that power sort of memory. Also havent your eyes been destroyed by many years of staring at a monitor, although see you’ve up-dated to the flat screen, so much easier on the eyes

Ok, no one has asked, so I have to. Everything you mention seems rational, and I completely agree with the arguments that it is a necessity for productivity in (especially) that industry. But why all the USB LEDs? I mean, I know that certain cards have leds on the back, but it’s rare to have white ones, and if they’re USB, then they’re not for cards. What are they for?

I suspect you might be thinking about something entirely different when it comes to USB LED’s. The ones I have stuck into a few empty USB ports are the kind that are meant for laptops, to provide a little light on the keyboard, for when you’re on a plane and don’t want to use the big overhead light for example. There’s a lot of different brands, models, and types. I originally bought a few because they looked useful. Antec makes a few multi-colored ones where you can set the blend of color being emitted from the LED’s.

Since I like to work in the dark as much as possible but still have a bit of backligh I decided to stick a few in the USB hubs which caused some interesting light streaks on the walls with just enough back lighting to offset the intensity and contrast on the screens so I bought a few more and created fancy mood-lighting out of them. 🙂

I’ve never seen a system setup that impressive before, let alone someone with the skill and requirements to use it all! Personally I find the fact that you NEED a setup like this far more impressive than the physical layout and specs. Of course the fact you probably have the disk space to store the entire Library of Congress and the processing power exceeding some supercomputers is impressive as well.

So, the question is, are you some kind of transhuman computer ubermensch? Or just a guy with a lot of time and experiance? I mean I find dual-monitors disorienting enough, let alone that bank…

Also, if you wouldn’t mind, would you have any advice for a young computer science major on how to end up with a setup like this someday?

Dan, I don’t think I’m transhuman. I don’t have a lot of time, which is why I want to work efficiently in a way that works for me. Experience… well, you might be onto something there, I’ve only been doing this “computer thing” for 26 years. 🙂

Advice.. hmm.. let’s see.. keep clients happy, do good work, make decent money, have a good accountant, don’t go in debt for anything, only buy what you need when you need it or just before you need it, and find a home with a good electric system or have one put in because you’re going to need that. 🙂

Stefan, I’m a bit of a neo-ludite and most of the pictures just strike me as cool shiny metal shots, so I must say I got more impressed with the person behind it all. I’m glad there’s someone like you in the cyberspace to set a good example for computer workers.

Matt, I usually give away the systems to friends or acquaintances that know someone who could use one (provided of course they don’t mind large cases and big power supplies). After a maximum of 3 years any hardware is a tax write-off anyway.

I was looking through the pictures of your home office and noticed that you had trouble setting the time on your VCR (out dated technology, no DVD burner?) If you would like me come by and help you set it I would be more than happy? I was also wondering why an Author-izer would wear a white doctor’s coat, role play?

Chris: Yes, outdated technology indeed. I’ve stopped watching TV a few years ago. There’s never anything of interest on there anyway. Though if I am in the mood of being lied to I’ll sometimes turn on CNN. 🙂 And yes, role play… as the image label says; “This image was shot at the Linnen Life Gallery after Sallie gave a presentation on podcasting, in character with the white doctor’s coat and as professor at the Podcast Asylum.”

I have to say that this is a very impresive setup. Needless to say that if you need this kind of ‘PC’ then more power to you, sir. You obviously enjoy what you do and need a have a productive place to work in, way beyond my means and requirements but boy, am I jealous, lol! Thankyou for sharing just a small insight into your world.

Hey Man…cool set up.
You must be really dedicated to do all this stuff and must really have a passion for it.
I’m wondering, what do you reckon you’d have to do to be able to keep the room livable on a hot day…maybe a few freezers or something lol. Also…one question…how come you don’t have a Wiki about you?

@Jerram: On really hot days I am usually out, not working, or take the laptop to a cooler place. There’s only so much cooling I can do on the office side that it’s more practical to take a few months vacation. 🙂

A wiki… hmm… good question, I don’t know. I think, given that there’s a few folks out there who already think it’s pretentious to show my home office pictures, that having a Wiki might get them to claim “uber-pretentious”. Hehe.

I have 5 identical 19″ LCD screens on my XP machine and lots of people tell me that I’m crazy and that I don’t need them. It’s nice knowing that other people are doing it to. I totally agree with you – I do use them all, they do make working more efficient, and if I had more than 5 then I’d make use them too. Yes I do have Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator running at the same time as e-mail, 30 Internet Explorer windows and various other things. Ultramon is a utility that can’t be overestimated for multimonitor setups. I dont’ really understand how people can say that its overkill – Windows is a multitasking OS, and that’s what we all do with it. I chose 5 as it’s a balanced number – I started out with one, moved to two, and then to three, having a focal point in the middle was great. Then when I moved from CRTs to LCDs the logical progression was another on each side, in an arc, with a focal monitor in the centre. I could go 7 but i don’t have the desk space!

@Andrew: You’re absolutely right. Productivity goes up, efficiency increases, but I suspect that the many people who don’t understand that or claim, mostly out of simply not having had the experience of using multiple screens, are perhaps people who might not be able to deal with it. There are people that can listen to music while reading a book and others who can’t. If I watch a surgeon doing a complex procedure while using many tools that are completely unknown to me it may seem like magic but I wouldn’t dare try and tell the surgeon he doesn’t need all those tools or that he doesn’t need them all. Not unless I was a surgeon with the same seniority and experience.

It’s like a driver of an ordinary car saying to the trucking company they don’t need all those trucks to transport stuff because “the trunk of an ordinary car can also hold stuff for transport”. 🙂

Hi Stephan, I think that your home office is absolutely excellent and your work (from your explanation) is very intriguing. I dealt with negative people like you talk about when a buddy of mine and I started our company, American Legacy Real Estate. People said that I would not be able to make the site work and that people would not like it. We knew that they were wrong and forged on. We have been extremely successful and are now preparing to offer national franchises this year at NAR (The National Association of Realtors) in Las Vegas. People said bad things about my home office too because I had a $7000.00 Pioneer 50″ plasma as my personal display. They told me that they would not have thrown the money away; bla bla bla. As you stated, they had no idea of what I even did for a living. Don’t mind jealous people. They are just negative by nature. Keep up the wonderful work and thanks for sharing photos of your home office. I absolutely love it!

When working on a streaming audio server once I found my self opening many terminal windows and using multiple machines and displays as a natural side effect. In comparison to systems with fewer screens I found the tear down and respawning of applications, and reframing my mind around everything to be a big obstacle. So what a great convenience this type of setup really is.

Stefan perhaps you could add a section or just comment here about some of the work scenarios that you deal with in some further detail. I can see how starting a few different programs in various virtual servers, then having them interact with each other becomes far simpler to see output of each one at a glance. With fewer screens the alternative might be to architect the code at yet a higher level of abstraction, which is perhaps too difficult or at least perceived to be too difficult or not possible due to the way the clients you work for are managed or their teams currently operate.

I’ve always wondered what the ideal programming environment would be. Whether for emacs based work, or visual studio, etc, and what constitutes the necessary items for productive work in terms of screens, keyboard position, desk space, lighting, and so on. http://www.winsted.com/ makes some impressive furniture however most of it is geared towards simply monitoring and I’m not sure which items of theirs would be best suited for a programming environment. As you demonstrate with your set up, the ideal work space is perhaps a case by case basis. There may be a minimum that can be somewhat agreed upon though, and improved on over time. Some of the multi monitor gallery images were helpful in this regard though I found your set up to be the most well thought out.

Aside from the 12-screen variation you may consider for the future, for example based on four quad based ergotron units, and the neverending storage and system upgrade tasks are there other changes you’re looking forward to? That glass-based 19″ rack with ventilation sounds interesting, and another possibility might be to have a fake wall which was sort of hinted at here in the comment blog; most of the systems are placed exactly on the other side of the wall, with 1″ gromet holes and other face plates as shown at datapro.net on the work side. And yet another option is to use that wall, again just behind the screens, with a large rear based projection unit visible just above. So all the systems, noise, and projector would actually be completely behind that wall. It would be the service area, so to speak.

I actually remember some of those early plugin modules for 3D Studio and the particle systems and features offered by them. Its very cool that you’ve gone so far with the technology and software development. At the time I managed to read/write some data into 3D Studio by using the 3ds file format specs that were published, only enough to place and move some objects.

My last question if you’re able to comment on it is whether you can see a scenario where you can be even more productive, perhaps by doing work without the overhead of all those virtual servers; I realize you need to test the correctness of the final product on an end system, and a virtual server has the nice side effect that you won’t have a specific scsi or other failure mode tied to your build, model and physical instance of machine too. Perhaps it also serves to nicely save your last work state, as I alluded to above with the terminal window example.

@LV: I hadn’t heard of Winsted before but some of their multimedia desks look pretty decent. Though I think I’d need two or three of those in some connected arrangement. I’ll add something to the FAQ about typical screen/system usage scenarios that I find myself in. That is actually a darn good idea! 🙂

Improving my efficiency has been, and still is, focussed on increasing the level of automation involved. For years it has been a hodgepodge of scripts and remote triggers and command tunnels to other systems and the VM’s and in the past year I’ve started replacing that with proprietary software in order to give me more control over all processes and by having simple configurations that will take care of a lot of things that are often done manually or by slower scripts and batches. This is mostly in the area of automating more of the API documentation and source code/build management, extracting and combining source and documentation, and of course starting off more automated tests and unit tests and continuous integration. Throwing more hardware and power at it, at this point, won’t really help all that much so the solution is now to improve the software and processes that form the actual backbone of all development.

Stefan,
Outstanding setup. I have progressed from a single monitor to two, and then three, and currently use five, plus two laptops. To the people who have never used multiple monitors, I can understand their negative comments about the need for something like this, but I couldn’t agree with you more on the benefits of having all of the programs you need, up and available, without having to minimize one in order to open another. Granted, it’s certainly not a necessity for the majority of computer users who are just surfing or e-mailing, but when you need to use several programs at the same time, it’s invaluable as you obviously know. So, to those of you who don’t understand the purpose for such an “over the top” sort of setup, it’s just that what most people use their computers for really doesn’t require more than a single display, which is the norm. Sure, this looks cool and has an obvious “wow” factor, but specialized work requires specialized tools and, in reality, that’s what this is. Thanks for sharing you photos.
Dennis

i was doing a random search on google for desktop background images and i accidentally found your website. i think your system is so sweet im trying to make a similar setup using old school computers i got off one of my teachers. while doing this i have managed to setup the computers with synergy but i was wondering if there is any way to make it so that one set of mouse and keyboard control all the computers but you can still drag windows across all the screens, i.e. if i wanted to run windows internet exlorer and found i wanted it on a differnt screen i could just drag it out of the screen and onto one of the other computers but still have the process running on the computer it was opened on. i have tried to search for something like this but have been unable to find something like it. do know of any program that could work like this?(or does yours?)
thanks in advance.

Hey there. I’m very impressed with what you’ve got there. It has inspired me with ideas for my future setup. Also, I’m not sure how many times you’ve heard this, but, there is a program call Synergy which lets you control any machine you want on your network with one mouse and keyboard. Just thought it might prove useful to you 🙂 Also, I’m loving the monitors and that 32GB ECC Server of yours. I kind of sat here with my mouth open when I read that little bit. Simply amazing.

This, Apple’s Web site 9specifically the Displays page that describes the 30 inch Apple Cinema HD Display) and the many dual-monitor setups run by Macs that I’ve seen pics of inspired me to buy a second monitor.

When I went to the Apple store and saw a 3o inch Apple Cinema Display, I was wowed. I wonder wha would happen if I stepped foot in your office!

I normally get a new pair once or twice a year, right now I’m using a Sony MDR V-300. Not too big and heavy, not too expensive but with decent sound quality. I prefer light and small and with acceptable bass but that’s a combination that is hard to find.

As a fellow software developer / entrepreneur I must say I envy your setup. I have a fairly new company that is growing very fast, one day hope to have a similar setup. I agree with productivity of multi-monitors as well. It amazes me how many people think I’m crazy for just my three monitors (planning to add more soon). I appreciate you taking the time to publish your photos and personal incite; it was very entertaining and captivating.

Great set-up!
I’m very impressed by the way you manage all the windows, I tried Maxivista after reading what you said about it and I’m conviced since. I also discovered Powerpro in your FAQ, but I can’t find how you can “launch applications or launch them on any system from any other system” with it. Do you use a specific plugin? I’ve been playing with it for some days now but it’s still a bit confusing to me 🙂

@Damien: The launching of applications on remote systems that I perform using PowerPro are actually done through a few custom Windows Services I wrote that act as tunnels or command gateways over the LAN. The PowerPro controls basically launch a local command against a local service which then instructs the remote system. The only purpose of PowerPro is that I have all frequently used commands under a panel instead of having to issue them through the shell like remCmd.exe /target:Octane /cmd:”start VS2005Env”.

hey, great setup! Those chieftec cases are also my preference for workstation/server cases, theyre built really well with good airflow. The huge one looks great too! might b a bit hard to carry though. I’m also waiting for lcd screens to become 1600×1200 for 17″ which would finally be the same as a 19″ crt’s res and screenspace! for the now the 30″ by apple seems to offer a great res. Have you considered getting a few of those? I guess it may not be practical based on the graphic card setup but they would give you great resolution.

Bill Gates was quoted saying that more than one screen leads to greater productivity, a nice quote to tell anyone who is constantly wondering hehe. Your setup, being pictured in the dark definitely reminds me of swordfish! maybe more processing power though!

You were saying that it gets pretty hot – i can imagine, do u not hav the a/c on in the summer tho? thats the best thing about datacenters you can sit under a giant a/c tho ull need good headphones on!

The edges don’t really bother me. Before the TFT’s I had multiple CRT’s and the edges on those were much wider. Projectors wouldn’t work at all, though. Resolution too low, requires a larger area to project on, bad color rendition, often fuzzy up close. Different purpose really.

Stefan, do you program anything at all?
Like PHP, C/C++, Visual Basic, ASM?
You could really do alot with thoes machines, and I havn’t looked, but have you ever considered getting supercomputers?
I’m not sure if you have supercomputers already, heh.

Radon is mostly a chameleon that I use for testing. The OS differs from time to time and often the graphics card does as well (testing for differences between ATI/nVidia and OpenGL/DirectX). I either swap out four of its HD’s with a pre-installed environment or I restore a large image of a pre-installed environment to the system.

Sweet setup. Just to differ from all the tech questions here – I’d like to know where I can buy faux brick wallpaper like the stuff you have hanging in your office. I’m renovating and would like a similar look to what you have.

I live in New Zealand – do you know of any online sellers that carry faux brick like yours?

Aaaaah…. 3D Studio in the days… that’s when my fascination for graphics all started… and monitors :). I have several 3DS IPAS books, but can’t find your name among them. A shame.

The hardware is without words ! But the absolute best thing that seperates you ahead of all the others I’ve seen, are the 2 front panels placed in an angle ….. brilliant !! It breaths 1 word : “Control !” But that’s just me, of course.

Are the wallpapers that you use custom made or copyrighted? Would be superb to have them too 🙂

I don’t want to considered a spammer on your site, so if you think the next link isn’t appopriate, please feel free to delete it :). It’ll be posted on http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon soon. What you see are 9 out of 30 monitors.

I noticed that you have a sound mixer. I have 3 computers at home and only a pair of speakers. I have been looking on the Internet for a way to get all my computers to output their sound through that one pair of speakers, at the same time, so no matter which computer or computers are on they will use the same pair of speakers, and without using a ‘switching’ box.

Nice system, and I liked the way you talk of yourself.
Stefan have you ever considered of building a small SAN in your little network?
The only think i personally don’t like is the networking part, how do you manage redundancy expecially in the switching part?

I miss my multihead setup from a few years ago, it was just 3 cheap monitors on a k6 though, not quite your level of hardware 🙂

It’s a much much better way of working than having lots of windows ontop of eachother, and using a few machines on a kvm is currently making me sad, oh well, flat panels are affordable by ordinary humans now so maybe I’ll get things setup the way it’s meant to be soon 🙂

(comment) Nice set-up. I’ll show it to my wife when she tells me a *third* monitor is excessive!

(ramble) Ahh… I remember working on the Amiga. I remember building a scene, setting it to render and saying “Ok… See you in a week!” to my office mate – because it would take *that* long to render a scene and there was no prayer of doing anything else while it was working. I remember when we got our first 1GB hard drive. A *gigabyte*! All on ONE drive!! Wow! 🙂

But why do you not answer the question in detail about what you really do/need all the equipment for? you skirt the issue with waffle and I don’t care statements of what others think . . . To be taken seriously you really need to explain in better detail the amount of processing that your work requires.

I have no trouble being taken seriously as my business itself is living proof of. Answering the question (is it a question? seems a lot of people understand it already) is difficult depending on exactly who the reader in particular would be. Should I explain software development and all its aspects in anything less than a 2000 page book? It might be needed to fully understand the answer to the question but I doubt most people are interested in reading about things they might not grasp or have an affinity with. Should I explain in detail what VM’s are and how they are used and why a software developer working on several large projects needs them and thus needs “all that” and do that in how many words without boring everyone to death? 🙂

Why do stock traders need so many screens? You’d have to be a stock trader to understand the answer. Why do surgeons need so many tools in a tray? You’d have to understand anatomy and the specific surgery. Every form of work has its own set of answers but they aren’t always easy to provide since it depends on the reader.

Suffice it to say, I have yet to encounter a fellow developer who doesn’t already know the answer without having to provide one.

Home Office, or Home Studio?! I must have spent hours reading over your home office setup, and loved every minute of it. I have a very wide knowledge about computer ‘usage’ (at least for a college student), and can appreciate the idea of many screens for programming/business work. I must say, that my mind now has yet another thing to try to grasp for a long time, as far as exactly what is possible with this control center. Thank you for sharing all the information about your work station with such a welcoming spirit. You seem like a great person!

awsome setup. This in one of the most amazing websites i have ever been on. I use a three screen setup and i can understand how you are able to use so many screens at once but i was just wondering why you have a tv in the corner of the room? What do you use it for and why cant you put a tv card in one of your pcs.

The TV is mostly a left-over from the days when I actually watched TV which I haven’t done in years. My motto is, “if I want to be lied to, I’ll turn on the news on the TV”. 🙂 I’ve got a USB TV/PAR thingie in there somewhere too, though. Of course, haven’t really used it either. In the next office overhaul (somewhere around sept/oct 2008) the TV will be removed to make room for some other more important things.

Very Nice setup Mate!
Just reading your FAQ, did people actually as some of them questions?
I suppose to a home user it would seem lie overkill, but to people who know whats going on then it is fine, To me i think you need more gear, maybe a IBM Z20?

Actually, yes, the FAQ is based on real questions I’ve had over the years (from even before this site came to exist). There’s one or two in there just for humor and most are consolidated a bit because often the same questions were asked in slightly different ways.

hello
i have been reading you home office page and notice that you have mentioned you have some of the pcs on ups’s and your last post was about your new ups.
just out of interest were are they in the room.

am a digital media student and i gata say my pupils widened when i glimpsed that setup.. U R LEGEND! i hope one day i get that in my room. :-). and as my great uncle, to his side kick(pinky and the brain)

I saw the pictures of your setup, and at first thought it was overboard.

Than I read through your FAQ and completely understood your reasoning behind it all.

I normally don’t post comments on blogs at all, but in this case, I had to throw in a positive comment for all the negative ones you get.

Most people don’t realize the speed at which your mind processes stimulus (visual/audio/tactile) and would become overwhelmed by a setup like yours. Hence, they don’t understand you and end up trying to knock you down to their level.

As a former IT/SW QA guy, I understand and pay respect to every HW/SW configuration choice you made down to the minuscule; like your decision to a two layer approach for Inter and Intra NET. And I gotta give double props for your work on 3DS Max, now that I’ve switched careers to 3D Animation.

I just came across your website this morning. I must admit that I’m very envious of your Home Office!

But I must ask the following question: have you ever measured the amount of electromagnetic radiation being emitted when ALL of your equipment is running? I don’t think that I’d want to be too close to all of your stuff!

Hi Stefan,
I’m impress with your setup, one time I accidentally borrowed your picture and posted in my tagged account while I stumbled it on stumbledupon,I removed it, since I might get into trouble on the copywrite issues. I didn’t know it was yours and who you were. So I went to see where that picture originated and I came across yours… I guess sometimes people’s works is more popular than the author itself…

I am just curious, were you the only one who set-up all these things? Well, If I have the money, who wouldn’t want a system like that… I just hope you could share some technical details about the setup… I love it! and it’s nit. Regards! Rodel

Hi there, i’m using currently 4 monitors and was really thinking to upgrade to 6, probably will do the 2 down and 4 up. the problem i have come across is, what monitors are the ones sitting on the desk? Cause all the monitors i checked cant “sit” like that. they all do have a leg that has fixed height and you cannot tilt them enough to get this 50-60 degrees angle. Could you please tell me what monitors u using?

I’ve visited your site the first time about 9 months ago and I was shocked (in a positive way) about your setup. With the time I read every article on your site and understand for what you need that. I appreciate your detailed kind of describing, especially your “case studies”.

But at least I’ve a question about your work with the monitors. I ask this, because I also sit in front of 4 TFTs and need a solution. How do you change the inputs of your TFTs? “Normally” like I do by pressing the Source key on your TFT or do you have a tool that enables this. Maybe it’s a stupid question, but you use some software products I never knew before (like PowerPro).

Wow! Nice improvements! Once again I have had to re-consider my dream computer setup (in case the lotto strikes tonight and I can afford more than one system and more than one monitor (my present setup)

once again, you have build a great system. 🙂
It’s incredible how much processing power you have got in that office. And all those great monitors!
I startet using multiple monitors some time ago. I first used two 19″ tft monitors. That was probably the best thing I could do to make my computer experience more productive. You really get used to using multiple monitors and miss it if you have to work on a computer that has just got one monitor.
Recently I bought an apple cinema 30″ display. That display is really impressive. I have now got three monitors. At first I was kind of overwhelmed. It really took some time to actually use all that desktop space. But now that I got used to it, I could even imagine adding more monitors.
Your system has always kind of been an inspiration. It somewhat show what is possible.

It is really a great system, though not perfect yet.
There is one more thing you could do: Water cool all those systems and make the room quite 😉

I am still only a student, but have had multiple monitors for a while now. However, I have only had up to 3.

I am still wondering how you do this? Using maxiview, as far as I can read from their product page, it only supports 4 monitors? So I was hoping you would share, how to achieve a setup such as this, with the amount of monitors.

Even using a system such as DigitalTigers, with 8 screens, it uses a brute-force approach by simple adding more graphics cards, but I am under the impression that this has not been your solution? And if it has I must have missed it.

I’ve been attempting to research how to get a setup with 8 monitors, since I saw the DigitalTiger product, but I have been unable to come up with an effective solution without simple adding more hardware to support the other screens, and then I have run into the problem of sharing the monitors, with the control system, such as you describe.

In short, if using maxiview, how did you get it to support more than 4 monitors? Or have you combined them in a way that simply eludes me?

MaxiVista supports 4 monitors over the network so the maximum I can extend from any single system is a total of 5 monitors (one dual monitor directly connected on any system and 3 MaxiVista clients on any other systems connected to any of the other monitors).

But since I went from the old setup to the new 6 x 24″ setup I’m using MaxiVista less than before. Now various systems are all dual-monitor and switching inputs on the screens and sticking to dual-screens per system provides me more space than I had before when I was running smaller and lower resolution screens.

The desktop background makes it look like a single system was driving all the screens but that’s never been the case. It’s been 5 monitors at the most on any single system using MaxiVista. Using Synergy I can control all systems and screens as if it was all one single surface but the processing power behind the screens are different systems that perform different tasks.

In the current setup all systems (except a few) use two monitors and each of the monitors can switch between 2 or more inputs (the HP’s do 2 x DVI, HDMI, etc.) so the top left two are one system, the top right two are another system, the center two are another system, and which system is being displayed depends on how I switch the inputs on the screens.

If you want a single system to connect physically to 8 screens it would require 4 graphics cards with 2 outputs each but I haven’t run a setup like that myself and I know that not all graphics card drivers can handle it (or most systems since you’d need 4 slots for 4 cards and you’d want them all to run at full speed with acceleration, etc.)

I also want to multi-monitor my system. But I have a problem: my systems consist of mainly laptops and mini PC whose graphic card is integrated Intel 4000. This support only 2 maximum screens at any given time. So 1 laptop + 1 more external screen and that’s all. I can’t have another screen plug in the laptop anymore.

Do you have any suggestion so that I can achieve multi-monitor like your setup?

The only way to do decent multi monitor setups (and have enough performance without sacrificing color depth, resolution, or plain performance) is to go with decent graphics cards that can handle it. Or multiple graphics cards is that’s needed (and it’s often needed if you go for more than 4 or 5 screens).

Laptops and small PC’s just don’t have enough bandwidth and power to do these things properly. There are various USB powered display solutions but from what I’ve seen it’s not really that impressive. For one, there is a limit to the bandwidth of USB and powering multiple USB displays just seems like asking for more trouble than it’s worth.

Thanks for reply. Desktops are just too noisy and hot to me! And yes, I don’t like USB-something as well. Being U in universal doesn’t mean USB is good for everything, in my opinion! Maybe I have to stick with (1 ext monitor + 1 laptop) x 3 = 6 displays in total. Well, and I might need to use Synergy + MaxiVista to stick them together…A little bit more complicated.

Applications? Wow, way too many to even mention. Lots of development tools, of course, and lots of 3D applications that I support, etc. As for the OS’es, most system runs Windows in various forms, 2003 Server (x64 and x86), XP (x64), Vista (x64), etc. with countless VM’s running various flavors with various SP and patch levels and of course several Linux servers (virtualized).

I have just one screen but two large windows and 48 pictures – many of them are really large – on my office walls. That looks also great. And I have two synchronized and tuned old Atary computers (with two screens) in my music studio (as an answer to your Amiga, I had an Amiga too but I gave it away a year ago).

I just wanted to thank you for your page about Aware Bear. I was looking for a place to recycle some home computers and the Aware Bear page came up in my google search. It sounded too good to be true; home pick-up, no charge, etc. I was a bit wary (I’m an old cynic) when the site listed no address. A search for the name brought up your page on their business practices and I decided this was no firm I wanted to deal with.
Thanks again.
Pat

I share your enthusiasm for computers, I’m a digital artist who learned how to build computers at 15. Recently I began using a laptop as my primary work environment since I often have to visit clients whose projects I work on. Major props to you sir! I’m sure your system has been compared to the one in Swordfish, huh? I know when I was first introduced to the multi-monitor setup I quickly decided I wanted the same but I never found a solution for splitting the monitors the way you have. What hardware do you use to split your screen like that? I imagine it’s a powered external device that hooks into the DVI coming from your video card but any guidance would be appreciated as I couldn’t easily locate the information on your site.

Currently I’m working on a Dell M2010 (Dell’s only 20.1 inch laptop which they’ve since removed from the market) and a Wacom Cintiq 12WX LCD Interactive Display which works as my portable second monitor as well as it’s primary function as a Pen Tablet. Like you I get a lot of compliments on my system, though mine are sometimes from Starbucks patrons.

What kind of desks are those? I’m interested in something simple and sturdy like that, not those cheap gimmicky particle board “computer desks” that have all sorts of little compartments that are too small to be useful but take up space anyway.

Just to let you know I am very impresed with your setup, far more than I need at this moment but would love a big bunch of monitors, not too do work on, just to hug 😛

I am currently running 3 seperate systems, each with a different OS, Mac, Win & Lin.

I try and develop software that works on all 3 platforms a surprisingly hard task. My next experement will be trying to modify Synergy with extra functions and to clean up the code a little as well as improving performance, escpecially with regards to sub-Gbit networks.

I followed your version 4 setup with great interest. It inspired me to go from 1 to 3 monitors. Version 5 has caused me, in part, to increase my setup to 4 monitors. Would you consider posting some setups inspired by yours?

OMG Stefan, and i thought i was a geek wanting to setup 4 monitors off the same pc! That is amazing. I never got mine all running properly I found that the various interconnects, graphics card conflicts and yuk windows vista just made it all fail as soon as i had got it up and running and then changed something. These days I just stick with the two, one from each pc (being vista 64 with ‘only’ 8GB RAM one of them invariably sits there looking at me blankly because i asked it to do something too strenious like, oh id ont know, scroll down an excel spreadsheet maybe, so instead of getting frustrated I just switch back to the other job on the other pc and wait for it to cheer up!

I work out of my hayloft flat, office at one end, lounge at the other, i was thinking the other day i might move the office to a kind of sofa-based setup, have you or anyone else ever seen anyone do this kind of thing?

First congratulations. my name is Larry and I am from Brazil, South America, and wonders whether the images you presented which users screen saver? and if possible could you send me or give me the site. grateful

Wow, nice setup, as I read on the FAQ the electric bill must cost a fortune! Anyhow, I know that you specified in the faq that you do not want to divulge your source for hardware, but I would really appreciate it (be personal email if you prefer) if you could tell me, I won’t try to say that you sent me so gimme a deal… promise. I just happen to put together computers for friends/relatives and friends of relatives from time to time and would love to have an addition source of low-cost high-quality hardware for these people. (I’m a really nice guy, I like giving the best prices to these people since it is really more of a side-line, I’m a programmer/analyst by day and don’t usually charge for my installation time… support on the other hand I do charge 😉 ) Anyways, again, lovely work environment you have, I hope to have something similar (maybe a few screens less… personally, I’m fine with approx 4 screens). Good job!

While your setup is infinitely cool and all, it seems somewhat lacking in ergonomics. Shouldn’t the monitors be generally at or below your eye level? And I’d imagine having that little table space for resting your arms while using a keyboard or mouse would cause problems. The chair looks good though.
What about noise and room temperature? All those case and cpu fans must make your work environment filled with noise, though relatively benign and broadband. And how do you deal with working close to several kilowatts of heating power?

The two bottom monitors are below eye level. The four top ones put my eye level just slightly above the center level of those screens. So that works out pretty well for my height and from where I sit. It stops being below eye level when I angle way back on my chair, of course. I never rest my arms on the desk. That’s what I’m using the armrests on the chair for. Those also support my elbows and arms while working and typing, etc. Quite comfortable.

The noise is definitely there but my hearing isn’t all that great so a lot of the white noise is something I don’t hear. And I usually work with headphones on anyway. 🙂

The heat is the only real problem I haven’t been able to solve properly. But it’s only a problem during hot summers. During the winter it is actually very nice to not have to turn on any heaters. I’ve been solving the heat problem by not being around in hot summers because that’s when I usually leave for 2 months or so. Worst case scenario I could use a laptop elsewhere. 🙂

This is my first time visiting your site. After reading about your setup on Chris Pirillo’s blog I just had to see MORE. I was completely amazed at the size of it. It must have taken many years to build up to the setup you have today. Although I absolutely love it, I doubt that something of that scale would be practical for me. I would probably spend more time playing around with the hardware then I would doing actual work. But hey, that’s just me. I’m also a student (computer science) so I wouldn’t even be able to afford the electricity bill of all that hardware. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed going through the photos and reading about your multiple-monitor setup. 😀

I take it you are talking about the hardware? 🙂 A good 90% of all systems, screens, hardware, boards, you name it, comes from one single computer dealer who’ve been having me as a very satisfied customer for many years. These guys know how to build the crazy systems I need and do a great job. But I’m not going to tell you who it is unless I know you better. There have been people trying to get special deals from them saying they were sent by me. Ahum. Grrr.

It’s a shame that people use your name to try and get deals… grumble…grumble

What impressed me the most was not the visual effect of the set up (which is *quite* impressive) nor the uses you have for it, but the work you did to get all this up and running smoothly. It must take a lot of dedication, patience, study, knowledge and plain ol’ perseverance to get this rig working like you describe it.

if you spent as much time actually doing what software engineers do, as opposed to designing a website to show the world your ‘fancy foot work’- you may discover that the security of your command center is compromised via a multiplexing client that leeches via 110v/ac drop rate.

I would like to say, that this site of yours is extremely nice. Looking at the pictures, and the enterprise hardware makes me somewhat jealous. I have not had a chance to settle down, so, I don’t invest in systems like these, much too top heavy. But, I’m just curious, what is an approximate cost for all this hardware you have? It must be in the ten’s of thousands of dollars. Anyhow, I’m sorry to hear that people are cut/copying your pictures and pasting them as their own. It’s a terrible shame!

Once you go Ergotron, you’ll never go back – thanks for converting me to using the LX arm!
Love the setup though – I’m already a fan of the multiple monitors, but you’ve taken it to the extreme 🙂
Out of interest, have you got any tips for a budding graphics artist/photographer/programmer?

I am new to the site and would like to know if you could go into detail about the types of os(s) the 11 Workstations/Servers are running. Like Argon- Is it running VMWARE or Virtual Box?

If this question has been asked before could you point me to that entry. I am only asking about the new office setup as even though I do not have the $$$ for your system, I am a collector and able to get refurbished parts and any type of os. This is so I can gain knowledge for my resume for the next job.

Thank you for taking time out of your scedule to help. Now I just need to goto Salvation Army Computer Recycle Center where the city drops off all of its used equiptment and start with getting used versions of your cabnits (Sorry about cabnits 🙂 )

Stefan-
Truly impressive setup! Thanks too, for fixing the link back to this comments section.

Complete transparency here: I’m getting in touch on behalf of Ergotech (http://www.ergotechgroup.com). They are the primary competitor against ErgoTron, whose LCD arms and stands you are using. Ergotech believe they have a better product and are looking for bloggers / community members who would be willing to use their products and then provide a public-forum writeup. The review can be good or bad — they care most about the feedback and getting to know their end-users.

Stefan- You’re a trusted authority, and your feedback would be valuable. Are you interested? If not, any ideas on someone who might be? For others reading this, please get in touch if you’d like to volunteer: aaron AT digitalmarketingworks DOT com.

Thanks, all, for your time. If you’re impressed with Stefan’s work, you might want to also check out http://www.workstationsetups.com (no affiliation – just a cool site).
-Aaron

Impressive setup, and I really appreciate that you documented a lot of the features and utilities you use. All of that has given me some ideas to add to the near endless list of to-do items.

One thing that caught my eye in your write up was your DASD access speeds, transfer speeds and the temptation to go to 10G. Upgrading to 10G was too much for me to justify and I really didn’t want to go through all the setup so I went with a LACP/LAG setup. My DASD server (Linux, 4 eth cards, 8 drive raid5) I’ve bonded all the NICS together to get a 4GB pipe. I also have 4 eth in the desktop and my VM servers both have 4, all the other miscellaneous laptops, computers just have 1. I get pretty good transfers without jumbo frames in the 150MB/s to 250MB/s range. On the DASD server directly I can do ~350MB/s reads. Note that for Windows you have to get a 3rd party add-ons for nic bonding.

I just use software iSCSI for targets out to the individual Linux VMs and then another target for the ESXi servers (for windows VM etc) and various generic NFS and CIFS mount points.

I keep contemplating going to jumbo frames but last time I dealt with jumbo frames it was a hassle to maintain, but you’ve inspired me to add back on the list.

I’ve been running a minimum of three monitors for over 8 years now (started with CRTs) and have sometimes run multiple systems. I can say that I very much appreciate how clean everything is in your area. The display of the older hardware is a really nice touch. Make me wish I’d kept some of my older hardware. The Amiga was a real surprise.

It’s unfortunate about the Aware Bear situation. I’m running a five monitor setup withthe addition of a laptop. I don’t do development or anything of the sort and have mostly picked up my hardware from swaps and payment for building new systems for people etc. I’d had a fire Christmas last year and was able to update to all TFT’s now. 3-24’s and 2 17’s.

Your book shelf of books makes me drool as well. I really need to get a good book management system. Although I don’t have quite the collection you do I do have a number of the same book and might just end up going throug them to take a boo for your name lol.

Thanks for share your job. Go on (but not so much!)
Could you explain (or sugest) how to manage all those system in terms fo backups, for restoration? What you use to do this kind of routine?
I’m trying to manage about six machines in my (home)office, but can’t sleep with this problem.

1) System images. Every system uses a 60-150GB C: ‘system’ array or partition. These are frequently backed up once every month or so with incremental image backups done as-needed (when there have been sufficient changes to a system). The huge image files are stored on two other systems so restoring an entire system partition on any single system is fairly easy if there’s a need to do that.

2) VM images. Some VM’s are imaged, others are just copied, to other systems. This takes a considerable amount of storage but rebuilding some VM’s would cost me more in terms of time than it costs to have the storage space.

3) Manual backups of data/files. I use a bunch of scripts to create ZIP/RAR backups of data which is then copied to other systems as backups, copied to external HD’s, and for mission critical material also off-site. I run those backups on an as-needed basis.

4) Automated backups. The same scripts I’ve created also run on the various systems using a scheduler that will incrementally create backups every few hours or days (depends on the backup set and the data and what I configured for each set). Some of the backup scripts will create versioned backups where it keeps a number of previous versions of every file in the backup set.

The combination of these four different types of backup ensures I always have 2 or more copies of all important data and system images ready to be used and restored if needed.

I’m not aware of any open source backup tools that would work for both Linux and Windows. I mean, I’m sure there are several. I just haven’t used any. The closest thing would be to make use of rsync but you will still need to script your stuff around that if you want things to be automated and extend the basic features offered by rsync. For Windows, it’s not open source (or free) but SyncBack Pro is really *really* amazing. I have used that in the past but since my requirements are so specific I eventually resorted to my own scripts and processes (since they cover more than just Windows).

I could probably write a dozen posts about what I do with my backup scripts but I’m not sure it’s going to be of much use to anyone because they are very specific. Specific to how I work, how I store my data, and where I direct backups to. In essence it’s a bunch of scripts that do various tasks like gathering files, moving and copying files, archiving files to ZIP or RAR archives, and combinations of versioning those backups so that there’s always one or more previous backups in case I need to “go back” a little further than just “the last”.

Some of the scripts are written in PowerShell (for Windows). The Linux and OSX ones are mostly bash scripts that are being hooked together by a few Python scripts. Combined with the Windows Task manager and cron on Linux these things are set to do their thing at various intervals. Some of the backups are started manually because they’re infrequent.

There’s also some more specific scripts that will do backups (e.g. “hotcopy” type backups) of my Subversion and Git repositories. Basically one front-end script will gather the files through a hot copy and then invokes other scripts that will do the packing, archiving, and versioning and copying to other locations on the network and remotely.

All those processes are a combination of “efficient” and “madness” but they’ve evolved over many years and work for me. Not sure they’d work as well for other people… not everyone is into the madness part. 🙂

Thanks for your reply. Oh yes, plugging every piece together is complex, but config them and get them into stable running state is even more challenge!

By the way, how do you backup everything else except the data? The data itself can be backed up with the automated scripts, but something like configs, settings, layout, etc. how could you back it up? (esp. in Windows where things are not gathered into one /home place like in Linux)

Backing up everything except the data is easy. I always separate data from the system so there’s generally a 100-150GB C: system volume and then one or two other volumes (W: for work and S: for storage). The data resides on S: and W and never on C:. Any programs that insist on storing data in C: are often easy to deal with… I just take the directory the data is stored in, relocate it to W: or S: and make a symlink to the directory. That way regular image backups of the system volume only include the symlink, not the files, which are handled through data backups and scripts.

Hey just to start I absolutely love your setup and style 🙂 I am setting up my own home office and I was intrigued by your use of the behringer mixer to get all the pc’s through the same speakers, do you think I could manage with just the 1602 (I also like this model) or is there major benefit to the extra audio equipment you have? I will be running 3 computers and some extra stuff like iPods through the system with some room for expansion

Howdy would you mind stating which blog platform you’re using? I’m planning
to start my own blog in the near future but I’m having a tough time deciding between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your design and style seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something
completely unique. P.S Apologies for getting off-topic but I had
to ask!

Love the setup. I wonder though what the noise levels in that room are. I’m sure you use headphones most of the time based on all that audio equipment but have you thought about doing something like a rackmount solution in the closet? Could help with cable management, reduce noise levels and more efficient cooling. But that’s just the “System Admin” in me coming out. I guess a lot of that also depends on how often you need physical access to each of the machines.

Your office technology is inspiring and the information you provide about it is interesting, well-written and much appreciated.

My question concerns the ratio of your time spent researching, designing, implementing, tweaking and maintaining your technology relative to your productive time using it — your `overhead` time compared to your `billable` time so-to-speak.

My curiosity stems from a similar (but ultimately more modest) attempt to integrate multiple operating systems (3), business applications (18-22), screens (4-5), storage boxes (4), desktop systems (2-3) and specialized laptops (3-5) to support my business modeling consulting practice. At the two year mark, I started logging my time and costs in the two categories, and after two more years, realized I was well past the point of diminishing returns in terms of boosting my productivity. Eventually I simplified, concentrating on long-term reliability and low maintenance.

Do you have some sense of the ratio I mentioned, and the productivity payoff for your investment?